“A day of Silence can be a pilgrimage in itself.”
—Hafiz
Every attendee practices ‘noble silence’ throughout the entire retreat, from our opening circle shortly after arrival to our closing circle shortly before departure. The silent retreat leaders speak during sessions to offer teachings and guidance in the practices, but also hold noble silence outside of sessions. Daily Q&A sessions are offered, encouraging you to ask written questions about your unique retreat experiences or the teachings and practices. You’re also welcome to reach out to a retreat leader or support staff at any time during a retreat with individual questions or needs.
The daily schedule offers both structure and spaciousness for your silent process. On our mornings together we begin practice at 7am, and we end our day around 9pm. Along with meal breaks, there is a 2½ -hour break after lunch for you to go for a walk, journal, your own spiritual retreat, take a nap or rest. Three nourishing, vegetarian meals are offered daily, using seasonal produce which helps you have the best retreat possible, not only in your mind and heart but also in your belly. Vegan and gluten free options are available as well.
Our meditation retreat atmosphere is a safe space for you to try out different meditation and concentration practices which invite a holistic experience of yourself and discover how you want to bring these practices into your life. There’s no expectation that you do anything perfectly or that you can even sit still! Many seating options are available, and we practice together by increasing the length of our meditations day by day, building up our stamina in the practice. Your humanness is welcome—exactly as you are.
You’ll have an opportunity to share your silent retreat experience on the last day and we highly encourage everyone to witness each other's process and share your own experience. This is sometimes the most profound session of the whole retreat after being in silence with fellow seekers, your retreat family.
Hridaya Northwest Silent Meditation Retreat:
What Can You Expect?
Our experienced facilitators share wisdom and inspiration from a variety of esoteric spiritual traditions. They also hold an explicit awareness about how oppression, patriarchy, colonization, racism and capitalism have kept these teachings inaccessible to so many people, and offer many access points to understand and receive the teachings and esoteric knowledge.
Meditation and other techniques are taught step-by-step with the opportunity to deepen your practice throughout the retreat.
But a silent meditation retreat isn’t about a technique or bit of knowledge. It isn’t about finding something that’s missing. It’s a process of opening to the part of you that is beyond all limitations. When you connect with that inner realm, it will infuse your entire life with its Love.
Meet Our Team
Hridaya Northwest began offering silent retreats in Washington state in 2017. Since then, we have led over 25 silent retreats and are honored to continue supporting seekers to dive into their spiritual path through the profound experience of silence.
Grace Bryant
Co-Founder
Grace (they/them) loves inviting people into the joyful challenge of genuine spiritual living, with all of its discomfort, shadows and paradigm shifts. They do this through silence, embodiment, sexuality & intimacy, community building, anti-oppression and dismantling inherited and created conditions.
Grace has been a whole life educator for two decades, integrating drama, music, movement, meditation and yoga, mindful living, creative play, teamwork, conscious collaboration, anti-racism, community building and leadership. They have been teaching yoga and meditation since 2007. Grace offers spiritual mentorship, relationship and intimacy coaching, as well as holistic life coaching and integration, using touch & bodywork, energy work, emotional awareness and mindfulness. They are exceptionally grateful for all the communities, colleagues and badass people in their life who inspire creativity in the chaos and have taught them so many tools of radical acceptance, and personal and societal dismantling.
See more of Grace’s work at bewholebehappy.com
Dianna Heston
Co-Founder
Dianna (she/her) was first introduced to the Hridaya meditation and yoga practices more than a decade ago and has co-facilitated silent retreats since 2016. The retreats have evolved into a time of reflection for herself, as she balances being of service while welcoming the reflective time of silence as her own spiritual retreat and practice. Dianna considers it an honor to provide retreat nourishment, as meals become a great source of comfort during a retreat. Knowing this, she brings mindfulness and care to all aspects of food preparation, from planning Ayurveda-inspired menus to presentation on the table.
Dianna has both witnessed in others and personally experienced the healing and wellness available through the yogic path, with meditation and mindfulness, physical asana, and breathwork. When not engaged in retreats, she spends each day with her two young grandsons. Living in a multi-generational home environment has long been a dream, sharing a lineage of wisdom, daily rituals and the joys of life make each day bountiful.
Angela Bohl
Facilitator
Angela’s life work has followed two parallel paths: a deep desire for social and ecological justice, and an equally deep inner journey of self-inquiry. After years of working for social change and sustainability, she fell in love with yoga, which became both a source of profound personal healing and the missing link between individual awakening and the collective transformation she longed to see in the world. A devoted practitioner and facilitator of non-dual Tantra yoga, Angela also offers support as a transformational coach, mindfulness mentor, and healing circle guide, and feels immense gratitude for the opportunity to share these powerful teachings in service of peace and freedom for all. She lives in Northern California with her wife and two dogs, where she loves renovating their old house, dancing, and planning her next travel adventure.
Learn more about Angela at www.angelabohl.com.
Jess Epps
Facilitator
Jess has been practicing with Tantra Immersion and Hridaya Northwest for seven years. They are particularly interested in contributing to work that challenges Western assumptions about yoga and that increases accessibility for all types of bodies and minds. Jess strives to and enjoys finding unique ways to apply the teachings and practices of Tantra to all aspects of a busy life in order to integrate daily living into spirituality. Beyond spiritual study they are a bit of a geek - enjoying deep conversations about life, death, Star Trek, medicine, and basically anything that friends want to geek out about.
Michelle Raine
Facilitator
Michelle Raine (she/her/hers) is a long time yogi who has been weaving yoga into her spiritual journey for 18 years. She found her way to Tantra through silent meditation retreats 5 years ago and continues to seek the Spiritual Heart daily.
Her passions in the world include Earth based practices, ceremony and ritual and heart-centered self enquiry. She creates offerings in the world that invite us into slowness, stillness and a turning inward. Her heart and soul are committed to Liberatory practices and Radical Dharma* that deconstruct the systems of oppression that we live in. Her deepest desire is to tap her full spiritual and creative potential within community — and to have an impact of Love in our world!
She spends her time writing poetry and prose, loving on her jungle of plants and creating art of all kinds — especially the art of slowness and finding the sacred in the mundane.
* A term attributed to Rev. angel Kyodo williams, Lama Rod Owens and Dr. Jasmine Syedullah.
Annual Silent Meditation Retreat Schedule
We offer 3-5 retreats per year in the Pacific Northwest, which always fill up!
Join our mailing list to receive a short newsletter when we announce new Hridaya Northwest retreats and offerings, just a few times a year. If you don’t see a retreat listed you can attend yet, please contact us and inquire about our next year’s schedule.
You can find more information on daily schedules, practices, and what to expect in a silent meditation retreat in our FAQs and in the description of each retreat
Transparency Around Pricing
The cost of each retreat covers your accommodations, food, additional expenses like printing and supply costs, and the time and travel of your facilitators. A 5% donation will be given from all registration fees to a global scholarship fund for those facing financial hardships and/or oppression.
If you would like to apply for a scholarship, please specify on your application form. We will let you know within 60 days of the start of the retreat how much of a scholarship you are eligible for based on our funds and our applicants.
Hridaya Northwest has always kept the cost of our retreats incredibly low, around 1/3 to 1/2 of other comparable retreat prices. We directly match the cost of the retreat to the cost of the expenses. Our facilitators prioritize spiritual teachings in their lives, not corporate salaries, and any income for the facilitators directly supports their families and their ability to provide these retreats.
We honor that everyone’s level of financial accessibility is different and subject to various factors. If we can further support your accessibility through payment plans or scholarship funds, please contact us.
Sponsor a Student
We recognize that some people have the funds to support the spiritual work of those with fewer financial resources. We welcome donations to “Sponsor a Student.” Donations to this program will be used to assist us in offering scholarships. Please consider supporting the practice of everyone in our truly diverse spiritual community. To contribute to our “Sponsor a Student” fund, contact us for a donation link.